Solve the World's Energy Needs? Any Non-Fusion Possibilities?

[dimensionless]

What could potentially allow the world to create cheap, low-polluting energy? I imagine fusion could fit the bill. Is there anything else other than fusion? Could super conduction have a major impact?

 

[pallidin]

Well, if oil prices keep rising, the established alternatives( biofuel, solar, wind, etc...) are going to become much more financially viable.

 

[pcxmac]

I think solar is cool. Combustion has been around for a while, I believe a creative mind is needed to "seek out new...possibilities" (StarTrek TNG). If only there were a way to overcome the conservation of energy / mass. I believe effeciency will be the more short term answer. Imagine all transmission lines fitted with superconductors :)

 

[Pengwuino]

haha yes, I am sure we all would want a way to get around COE.

The problem is if you combine "world", "cheap", and "low-polluting", you have problems. The best possibilities will probaby not be cheap and probably not suitable for every region in the world. There are a lot of "potentials" out there... but i don't know anything about their feasibility. As far as super conductors are concerned, one thing is that if you can figure out how to create room temperature superconductance, you'll reduce energy needs simply because you can (if it's economical) replace the current lines with them.

 

[vanesch]

What could potentially allow the world to create cheap, low-polluting energy? I imagine fusion could fit the bill. Is there anything else other than fusion? Could super conduction have a major impact?

I guess that spreading a desease that kills off 99.9% of the human world population would do too, but this is probably not the answer you were after

As Ian Malcolm says, in Jurassic Parc, "Life will always find a way"

No, seriously, in the relatively short term, I think a combination of solar, wind, bio and nuclear (fission) will have to replace as quickly as possible most fossile consumption. This becomes advantageous with high oil prices - let's hope they stay high and climb even higher.
On longer term, who knows ? Fusion is yet to be seen ; I don't think it will be a major player in most of the 21th century.

Contrary to what's often claimed in the media, superconduction will do almost zilch to any energetic consideration. All electrical power systems (generators, distribution etc...) is already 90+ % efficient.

 

[Pengwuino]

Damn so I've been conned by the media again!

 

[JustinLevy]

I guess that spreading a desease that kills off 99.9% of the human world population would do too, but this is probably not the answer you were after

I don\'t think (or at least I hope not) anyone would support such a measure. But it does identify the real problem.

Seriously, the only way to solve the energy problem is to stop wanting so much energy.

It is the same way with the hunger problem. Produce food more efficently, and the population just grows again needing more.


Regardless of the energy sources of the future (fusion, whatnot), if they are finite, we will use it up and demand more. The only authentic long term solution is if we can somehow control our population.

 

[vanesch]

Regardless of the energy sources of the future (fusion, whatnot), if they are finite, we will use it up and demand more. The only authentic long term solution is if we can somehow control our population.

Indeed, that's the entire problem: food, energy, ecology. The biggest problem on Earth are kids. We should stop making them in such quantities.

And there's another issue: imagine we arrive at develloping portable 500 GW fusion engines that are as big as an MP3 reader, with room temperature superconducting outlets, running on seawater. Have we solved the problem now ?

Even if we do not go through a thermal cycle and have "direct electricity production" in the 500 GW production cell (haven't gotten the vaguest clue how to do this, we're in complete science fiction here), the 500 GW outlet will, in the end, turn into heat, no matter how you use it.

Once this waste heat, produced by all the devices plugged onto these pocket fusion engines, starts competing with the energy flux the Earth receives from the sun, we're in for a BIG climate change ! Even though the source is entirely "clean".

 

[Pengwuino]

I would think that when we have a 500GW outlet, we'll have figured out a way to extract heat out of the atmosphere and get it off the planet...

I wonder how much money is being put into technology for possibly extracting heat/greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. I also wonder if the only barriers to such technology is money... since money is just a man-made idea that theoretically can be halted or manipulated in such a way as to make it work out. I mean when you're dealing with such a problem, money should not stand in the way.

 

[vanesch]

I would think that when we have a 500GW outlet, we'll have figured out a way to extract heat out of the atmosphere and get it off the planet...

It's difficult, you know. After all, unless changing entirely Earth's surface, or the atmosphere's composition, the number of infrared photons emitted is determined by the composition of the atmosphere and the surface temperature.

For instance, you cannot put some giant airco somewhere. You'd produce waste heat that overcompensates what you try to gain. However, you could cover the Earth with some kind of aluminium foil :-)

Oh, and BTW, never ever shortcircuit that 500 GW outlet :rofl:

 

[scott1]

Solve the World's Energy Needs? Any Non-Fusion Possibilities?

Get enviromtilest gourps and go to the suprme court and delcare the laws of physiscs are unconstional.

What about nuclear fisson?If we could find a way to make them safer and more effencent wouldn't that help solve the world's energy needs?

 

[dimensionless]

Well nuclear energy would be more feasible if we had superconductors. We could build the power plants in remote locations and then export electricity to the cities.

I'm sure oil prices will go up, but that might not have a huge impact on wind/solar/nuclear/biofuel. The latter group is less practical than coal, and coal is cheaper than oil.

 

[ZapperZ]

Well nuclear energy would be more feasible if we had superconductors. We could build the power plants in remote locations and then export electricity to the cities.

I'm sure oil prices will go up, but that might not have a huge impact on wind/solar/nuclear/biofuel. The latter group is less practical than coal, and coal is cheaper than oil.

I'm not sure I understand your fascination with "superconductors", and how it can do anything to "solve the world's energy needs".

1. We DO already have nuclear power.

2. We DO already have superconductors.

So? The amount of energy 'waste' isn't significant if all you care about is electricity transport. This isn't going to solve anything.

Zz.

 

[Q_Goest]

An interesting article in Science (Vol 310, 18 Nov. '05, page 1106) highlighted the future of oil production in the world. They predicted "a brief sigh of relief" in the next 5 to 8 years as various sources come on line. However, after that, they predict demand will outstrip supply. On the second page of the article, there's a review of alternatives which highlights various possibilities and their expected contribution in replacing oil..

When the amount of oil being pumped around the world maxes out sometime in the next 30 years or so (see main text), we will need an alternative to tens of millions of barrels of oil per day. At an October workshop sponsored by the US National Academies, though, experts on the leading alternatives made plain that even all the practicable substitutes combined won't be ready in 25 years to make up for a major shortfall.

Heavy Oil - Some crude oil is too viscous to flow easily into a well on its own. Typically, pumping in steam "converts peanut butter into ketchup," said Robert Heinemann of Berry Petroleum Co. of Bakersfield, California. Currently, about 3 million barrels of heavy oil are produced per day. If the price is right, Heinelmann said, heavy oil production might double in the next 10 years.

Oil sands - In Alberta, Canada, humongous steam shovels gouge out 100 tons of oily sand from the land at a time, eventually yielding 50 barrels of oil per shovelful. Steam injected into deep oil sand beds can also free up the oil for pumping. But the arduous and environmentally challenging extraction of oil from sand means that despite Alberta's abundant sands, only 3 million barrels per day may be produced in 2020, said Eddy Isaacs of the Alberta Energy Research Institute in Calgary.

Coal - Yes, coal could fuel your car. Friedrich Bergius proposed the first process for converting coal's big, heavy organic molecules into short chains of carbon and hydrogen in 1912. Germany fueled its Luftwaffe from coal during World War II. But David Gray of Mitretec Systems in Falls Church, Virginia guessed that it would take oil prices consistently above $50 per barrel to get production from coal up to 4 million barrels per day by 2030.

Natural Gas - Trucks and buses already run on natural gas, but to ease international transportation of gas and to concentrate its energy, its single carbon molecules can be chemically joined o form long-chain hydrocarbons, mostly a diesel like product. ExxonMobil is helping build a gas-to-liquids plant in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, Emil Jacobs of ExxonMobil in Annandale, New Jersey, said at the workshop. No other site has yet proven commercially viable. When pressed, Jacobs allowed that gas to liquids might yield half a million barrels of oil per day by 2015.

Conservation - John Heywood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge noted that efficiency increases for US cars have been entirely countered in the marketplace by the American predilection for bigger, heavier cars. And major steps up in efficiency with clean diesel engines and hybrids will take 30 years to have a substantial effect, he said, even under optimistic assumptions. Smaller cars will have to be in the mix, he concluded.

Nonstarters - Some energy sources will be of little or no use when the peak comes. Nuclear, wind, and solar do not produce liquid fuels. Liquids such as ethanol from biomass are not yet firmly economic. Oil from organic-rich shale won't be commercial for a decade or two, if then. Hydrogen for fuel cells would likely take half a century to have a substantial effect.

The problem I see is if we could convert heavy oil, oil sands, coal and natural gas to liquid fuel, the global warming problem could present us with even more difficult challenges. I don't like the term "global warming" because it really doesn't due justice to the issue. An interesting article in Scientific American a month or so ago discussed ocean acidification due to the sudden rise in atmospheric CO2, and that's just part of the issue. Local changes in weather patterns threaten to change the landscape considerably, and ocean level rises threaten to change things further. The right answer isn't more fuel that creates CO2, the right answer is renewable resources IMHO and possibly fission or fusion energy. Note the article above doesn't acknowledge the possibility of electrically powered vehicles and I'm not sure why. I have to respect the journal but they certainly can have rather pesimistic views of the future.

Regarding how our energy consumption/expenditure may affect global warming, I'd have to respectfully disagree with vanesch:

Even if we do not go through a thermal cycle and have "direct electricity production" in the 500 GW production cell (haven't gotten the vaguest clue how to do this, we're in complete science fiction here), the 500 GW outlet will, in the end, turn into heat, no matter how you use it.

Once this waste heat, produced by all the devices plugged onto these pocket fusion engines, starts competing with the energy flux the Earth receives from the sun, we're in for a BIG climate change ! Even though the source is entirely "clean".

I think you can convince yourself that 'free energy' such as that suggested will have a negligable affect on global warming if you consider the enormous amount of solar energy incident on the earth. In comparison to our needs, I believe the amount of incident solar energy is a few orders of magnitude larger.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think you can convince yourself that 'free energy' such as that suggested will have a negligable affect on global warming if you consider the enormous amount of solar energy incident on the earth. In comparison to our needs, I believe the amount of incident solar energy is a few orders of magnitude larger.

Actually I believe there was a post on this forum a short while ago about a professor who actually did the calculations and said that within a few decades (i think), the rate of manmade heat will be 7x the heat incident on the Earth from the sun. I believe the thread was about someone on our forum that miscalculated how long fusion could work for the world and eventually someone brought that study showing how this heat problem would come up if or when we were able tos olve our energy supply problems.

 

[Astronuc]

Price of crude oil (1947-2004) - http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

Price of oil and gas - http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_price_increases_of_2004_and_2005

Checking NYMEX - June 2006 $75.12 light sweet crude, and futures for through Nov 2006 are between this price and up to about $77/ barrel.

Gasoline prices will like exceed $3.00/gal in much of the US this summer.

======================================================

Natural gas is running about $8 mmBTU, and since most gas fired plants were built with anticipated prices of between $2-3 mmBTU, many gas fired plants are offline.

=====

The problem is two-fold. Demand for energy is high, and often for wasteful purposes. The production of energy is relatively inefficient.

Solution - reduce wasteful use of energy, and improve efficiency of production.

 

[vanesch]

Regarding how our energy consumption/expenditure may affect global warming, I'd have to respectfully disagree with vanesch:

I think you can convince yourself that 'free energy' such as that suggested will have a negligable affect on global warming if you consider the enormous amount of solar energy incident on the earth. In comparison to our needs, I believe the amount of incident solar energy is a few orders of magnitude larger.

I hope you understood that I said that half-jokingly !
The point was that even if the source is entirely clean, that there is yet another limit to power production, which is when its total production starts to be comparable (say, 1%) of the total incident solar flux. That's a huge flux, I know, but it is a finite limit in any case.
Power flux from the sun, say: 1KW / m^2.
Total "cross section" of the earth: 1.3 10^14 m^2, so total solar power flux: 1.3 10^17 W. 1% of this: 1.3 10^15 W
Number of 500 GW MP3 units corresponding to this: 2500.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power )

Power consumption in the world in 2001: 1.3 10^13 W
So we're indeed still two orders of magnitude removed from this. In other words, 25 of these 500 GW MP3 units would do, for the moment...

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[rikus]

hi, first post here-

question regarding this issue- if one would have a 40 miles long electric cable, would it be possible to strech it from Earth's mainland to outerspace? i mean physically, is it possible to do that?

i ask that because solar energy inside Earth is really lousy because of maintance and land costs and also the damaging effect of silicon-but if you would build a huge powerplant based on solar energy in orbit of earth, which is probably possible, all you would need is a cable that hold until the bottom of the earth...?

 

[Azael]

hi, first post here-

question regarding this issue- if one would have a 40 miles long electric cable, would it be possible to strech it from Earth's mainland to outerspace? i mean physically, is it possible to do that?

i ask that because solar energy inside Earth is really lousy because of maintance and land costs and also the damaging effect of silicon-but if you would build a huge powerplant based on solar energy in orbit of earth, which is probably possible, all you would need is a cable that hold until the bottom of the earth...?

You don't need a cable at all. You can beam down the energy with microwaves. Building and launching solar panels into space in enough quantities to make a impact on energy production would cost ALOT.

 

[rikus]

hmm so maybe there is silicon near us? we could build the glass in the american space station..or maybe just getting the raw materials and build the plates in orbit..

microwave is 100% efficiancy when beaming from space to earth?

 

[Azael]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite

that wikipedia article claims the microwave is 85% efficient.

Building the plates in orbit won't do any difference to cost since the expensive part is getting the material into orbit in the first place.

btw I hope you mean the international space station ;)

 

[rikus]

damn, i knew i wasnt the first.. they said there that the mining on the moon is the cheapest, so they could build the whole SPS system orbiting the moon and then make a line of mini microwave receiving stations from the moon to earth, (which is around 400000 Km distance) i just don't know the maximum range of an average microwave transmittor.. if they are 200Km each that would mean 2000 of those mini stations...nuts..

well, i gave my best shot

p.s.
its an international station? no offense intended, i thought it was a NASA project..

 

[HallsofIvy]

How strong do these microwaves have to be to get through the atmosphere? What would happen if the microwave beam got slightly off line to the receiving station?

 

[Azael]

How strong do these microwaves have to be to get through the atmosphere? What would happen if the microwave beam got slightly off line to the receiving station?

as far as I know the atmosphere is almost completely transparent to microwaves.

The other question is answered in the wiki article(allthough I don't know how accurate it is).

The beam's most intense section (the center) is far below the lethal levels of concentration even for an exposure which has been prolonged indefinitely. Furthermore, the possibility of exposure to the intense center of the beam can easily be controlled on the ground and an airplane flying through the beam surrounds its passengers with a protective layer of metal, which will intercept the microwaves. Over 95% of the beam will fall on the rectenna. The remaining microwaves will be dispersed to low concentrations well within standards currently imposed upon microwave emissions around the world. However, most people agree that further research needs to be done on the effects of these stray microwaves upon the environment. Likewise, more research upon the effects of microwave transmission upon the atmosphere needs to be carried out extensively.

The intensity of microwaves at ground level that would be used in the center of the beam can be designed into the system, but is likely to be comparable to that used by mobile phones. The microwaves must not be too intense in order to avoid injury to wildlife, particularly birds. Experiments with deliberate irradiation with microwaves at reasonable levels have failed to show any negative effects even over multiple generations.

 

[Astronuc]

as far as I know the atmosphere is almost completely transparent to microwaves.

It depends on the frequency. One would want to find a frequency for which absorption by water vapor would be minimal. One should realize that microwave ovens heat food by heating the water in the food. On the other hand, the density of water vapor is about 3 orders of magnitude less than water.

The microwave range includes ultra-high frequency (UHF) (0.3-3 GHz), super high frequency (SHF) (3-30 GHz), and extremely high frequency (EHF) (30-300 GHz) signals.

Above 300 GHz, the absorption of electromagnetic radiation by Earth's atmosphere is so great that it is effectively opaque , until the atmosphere becomes transparent again in the so-called infrared and optical window frequency ranges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave - I leave to one to verify with another source.

Presumably one would select a frequency of less than 300 GHz, but one must also avoid communications channels.

See also - http://www.altair.org/labnotes_RadioBands.html

 

[Azael]

It depends on the frequency. One would want to find a frequency for which absorption by water vapor would be minimal. One should realize that microwave ovens heat food by heating the water in the food. On the other hand, the density of water vapor is about 3 orders of magnitude less than water.

would that be a big concern in america, Canada and europe or is the levels of water vapor to low for it to make much of a difference??
I could imagine it beeing a problem around the equator.

 

[Kurdt]

I notice nobody has mentioned carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and at the minute fossil fuel burning is adding more to the atmosphere than can be removed by natural processes on the Earth. While heating due to the power consumption of man is indeed part of the problem it would be less so if clean fuels were used and that heat could escape naturally. The fact that carbon dioxide is building up in the atmosphere means that the heat cannot escape as this gas acts as a blanket to trap the heat.

I always thought that was the major problem in global warming rather than any heating coming from electrical power being used. France is nearly 75% nuclear if I remember correctly but I have no idea what they do with their waste now (maybe vanesch will tell us).

What I see as the biggest problem of all are governments and their legislation and oil companies. Its interesting to note that global warming has started to be taken very seriously by the general public, especially here in Britain, and that the oil companies have responded amazingly quickly with 'clean' burning petrols etc. It has long been known that even when crackpots claim they can make clean energy from water the oil companies will buy the idea and the rights for vast sums of money for complete rubbish. It just strikes me if they brought out these clean fuels just as global warming is peaking in public interest how long they've actually had the technology for them. Seems to me as a token gesture to calm the populace down. Anyway to swerve away from an conspiracy theorying that's all I'll say on that matter.

The other point about government legislation is that it would be very easy to require all new buildings to have solar panels or small wind turbines even on houses. The solar panels these days cost very little and while they will not provide all the necessary power needed they would cut down on the power consumed from fossil fuel power plants. The extra investment in solar panels would lead to more research and possibly hgher efficiency panels. So its nothing to do with not having alternative possibilities its whether we can be bothered to change our habits and it has to start with the people making our laws.

P.S Astronuc I pay £3.71 (~$6.70) for a US gallon in the UK I'd give anything to pay $3!

 

[vanesch]

I always thought that was the major problem in global warming rather than any heating coming from electrical power being used. France is nearly 75% nuclear if I remember correctly but I have no idea what they do with their waste now (maybe vanesch will tell us).

Of course you are correct, the problem is not (yet) the waste heat. If I've given this impression, then my fault. I only wanted to indicate, in an abstract way, that, from the moment that the total generated power (no matter how clean the source) will start competing with the solar flux, that we will be in for a problem. But, as was noticed by Q_Goest, we're not there yet, the total power used by humans is still of the order of 10^(-4) of the solar flux. I was only extrapolating in the far future.

 

[Tzemach]

Step backwards.

Instead of looking at more complicated ways to solve problems we should be looking to simplify. Improve our existing technology, I have been developing a steam turbine generator to supply a continual recharge to an electric car. I have no problem if someone else wants to copy the idea and build their own so here is the concept.
The major draw back with steam has always been the amount of time it takes to generate enough power quickly, who wants to wait till the car boils before taking off down the street? By using an electric car and only generating steam to recharge we solve that problem. Now comes the fun I don't boil a stack of water to get a little steam, I have designed a pressure cylinder into which I inject water as a mist with a fuel injection system and the best part is I have a microwave amplifier in the cylinder to heat the mist quickly. Voila, almost instant steam and the batteries can be recharged while you drive. I can't wait until I am fully operational I will take great delight stopping at service stations to wash the windows and top up with water.

 

[Kurdt]

Interesting concept, but do the microwave emitters run off the car batteries. If they do the system of energy is closed and thus the batteries will be losing energy powering the wheels which experience friction and also in powering a microwave emitter to heat water to charge the battery. Does the steam then drive a turbine that replaces more energy than was put in?

 

[skywolf]

Nuclear power plants on mars...
then send the energy back through microwaves

 

[brewnog]

I have designed a pressure cylinder into which I inject water as a mist with a fuel injection system and the best part is I have a microwave amplifier in the cylinder to heat the mist quickly. Voila, almost instant steam and the batteries can be recharged while you drive. I can't wait until I am fully operational I will take great delight stopping at service stations to wash the windows and top up with water.

I hope you're joking. What powers your microwave?

 

[eeka chu]

Seriously, the only way to solve the energy problem is to stop wanting so much energy.

That's a good point but I was thinking about it for a while. Once we have fusion and superconduction, power ratings for devices will probably increase. E.g. computers at the moment use hundreds of watts. A calculation in the processor require energy to flow, therefore you have a watts per calculation cost. Processors are quite likely to start copying supercomputer layouts soon, the dual core already has, whereby you'll have lots of individual processors in one computer. So we'll end up using kilowatts for computers and that could even go on to megawatts I suppose.

I don't think that's such a problem. The key is, not to be wasteful. Just because we have a lot of free energy to hand, let's spend and extra five minute designing a better chip that saves some juice per calculation.

Lets not leave our lights on just because we can't be bothered switching them off.

Of coarse, it's cheap enough for us to ignore these bits of advice at the moment. And the act of leaving the light on is quite disconnected from the juice bill, and certainly far disconnected from the effect it creates at the powerplant, which then flows out of the plant's exhaust and into the atmosphere. As for the icecaps, forget it.

We can indulge in our supercheap juice when fusion and superconductors come along, but we should start punishing, very severly, those who outright don't care about the efficiency of their products. Car manufacturers for instance. It shouldn't be an option for them to produce an engine that wastes more than 50% of it's fuel as heat in the same way that it's not tolerated if the car spontaneously burst into flames.

They can say that kind of thinking will push their prices much higher and mean less people have cars, which will harm society, but we've already witnessed that the alternative also runs a high, nameless, price tag.

I know people who will drive literally a few hundred meters, perhaps even less, and when the weather if fine to walk it. Incredible!

Perhaps as space based platforms become cheaper we might be able to deploy some form of solar collector farm in space, where the wattage will be much higher, and then direct the energy back through the atmosphere in a form that will undergo reduced absorption?

But I think fusion is probably the way it's going to go. We can't be far off now. And superconduction is still edging it's way forward with updates of the theory and some new conductors with impressive temperature requirements.

 

[vanesch]

So we'll end up using kilowatts for computers and that could even go on to megawatts I suppose.

And not to forget the airco that will evacuate the heat in the room

I don't think that's such a problem. The key is, not to be wasteful. Just because we have a lot of free energy to hand, let's spend and extra five minute designing a better chip that saves some juice per calculation.

I think you underestimate the efforts of the engineers designing all that pretty stuff: cutting down on power is a MAJOR issue. Not so much for ecological reasons, but because waste heat is a major engineering pain.

Car manufacturers for instance. It shouldn't be an option for them to produce an engine that wastes more than 50% of it's fuel as heat in the same way that it's not tolerated if the car spontaneously burst into flames.

The 50% is dictated by thermodynamics. A combustion engine will never be 100% (or even 80%) efficient. Internal combustion engines are already pretty efficient when it comes down to comparing them to what they potentially COULD do, within the limits of thermodynamics.

Perhaps as space based platforms become cheaper we might be able to deploy some form of solar collector farm in space, where the wattage will be much higher, and then direct the energy back through the atmosphere in a form that will undergo reduced absorption?

The problem is: getting the stuff up there. Costs a lot of energy and exhaust gasses.

But I think fusion is probably the way it's going to go. We can't be far off now. And superconduction is still edging it's way forward with updates of the theory and some new conductors with impressive temperature requirements.

I wonder what's this obsession with superconductors. In fact, I've SEEN several popular "scientific" documentaries (aimed at promoting the benefits of research on superconductors) telling the FALSE FACT that superconductors would give us "energy for free" or things like that, but that is BLUNTLY NOT TRUE. Electricity generation, transformation and transport IS ALREADY 90+% efficient. Big transformers and generators easily score in the 98% range. Transport is a matter of economy: you can make the transport as efficient as you want (section of the cables, voltage used - hence insulators used). You can go for 99.99% if you want to. But from a certain point onward, the investment becomes ridiculously high as compared to the efficiency gain. And if the transformer is 98% efficient, then there's not much use in having the line being 99.9% efficient: you can cut the cost roughly by 10 by making it only 99% efficient.

So if we replace all that conventional stuff by expensive superconductors (which shouldn't be cooled, because if they need to, you need to account for the energy in the cryogenics, which makes them also less than 100% efficient), you'll go from an overall, say, 95% to 99.8% or something.
Not 100% in any case, because there WILL still be losses, be it from radiation, friction in the generators, etc...
So all that pain for less than 4% gain.

However, there's one TRUE potential application for superconductors in electricity distribution, which is instantaneous power storage and relief. The MAJOR difficulty for a utility is to adapt its production to consumption. There's no way of storing electricity in huge amounts, so production needs to follow consumption. And consumption is highly erratic, which means that utilities need to have at their disposition "rapid-reaction" generators, like gas turbines. Big power plants, such as fission (and certainly fusion!) reactors do not have time constants of a few seconds.
So if one could construct devices which could store huge amounts of electrical energy, that would be great: during the day, they could charge up, and in the evening, for instance, they could provide for the extra demand, hence smoothing out the demand on raw production, so that expensive and wasteful means (such as gas turbines) can be disposed off.
Now, one such technique would be huge coils in which one sets currents of billions of amps circulating, and THAT would be nice with superconductors. Kinds of "magnetic flywheels". But the problem is that superconductors don't like magnetic fields, and don't support high current densities.

 

[eeka chu]

I think you underestimate the efforts of the engineers designing all that pretty stuff: cutting down on power is a MAJOR issue. Not so much for ecological reasons, but because waste heat is a major engineering pain.

I appreciate the efforts some designers take, but efficiency usually takes a backseat unless the application is battery powered. Designers have really only started implementing efficiency because they've been forced to by a.) regulations b.) their market refusing to keep replacing batteries (both literally and metaphorically). Less often, they can make use of a somewhat unrelated discovery to improve the efficiency of their own system with little cost to themselves. The very last option is improving efficiency out of heart, because it's simply money wasted in the eyes of most companies. If you can strap a Chinese $2 fan on it and have it work, it's getting the fan baby! :tongue:

The 50% is dictated by thermodynamics. A combustion engine will never be 100% (or even 80%) efficient. Internal combustion engines are already pretty efficient when it comes down to comparing them to what they potentially COULD do, within the limits of thermodynamics.

I'm guessing you mean the way in which the power is generated means that a large amount of surplus heat is also generated. It's only efficient when you decide that the waste isn't important in your calculations for a publicised efficiency figure (A view I'm 100% positive all car manufacturers will take). That heat is wasted because it could be recollected. The system would no longer be just a normal piston combustion engine, but it could be retrieved. Here we have a working example of the fan philosophy. The system to recover that thermal energy might cost a few thousand more capital on the car's price, and the system could even recover those costs over the miles of petrol wasted in generating heat, but the manufacturers just go with a fan infront of a radiator. If everyone else is doing it you're on kind of even footing with regards to recovering distance via wasted petrol and the first person to change has to put all the work in; it's in their group interest in a way to not bother trying to do this, although that may soon start to change as oil runs out (hell, it might even run out before they get a chance to launch such a product). Bring out your higher capital model and only the squares who think five / ten years ahead will buy it.

The problem is: getting the stuff up there. Costs a lot of energy and exhaust gasses.

+1

What we could really do with is a planet full of resources and virtually no gravity.

I wonder what's this obsession with superconductors. In fact, I've SEEN
[snip]
So all that pain for less than 4% gain.

Well, 4% of a national grid is a huge chunk of juice (and even it costs a few million to produce a cheap room temperature superconductor, you'll still $$$'s in), but I'd be more interested in the smaller scale roles. Computing for instance. The number one problem with conventional digital computing is heat generation. As we get those multicore processors I was talking about that use kilowatts / megawatts, it'd be nice to anhilate all the heat generated by using superconductors for the logic circuits. It'll also help with getting higher speeds out of the circuits as we approach the single atom ?boundary?.

We are lucky to have copper. Reasonably cheap, but still an excellent conductor.

However, there's one TRUE potential application for superconductors in electricity distribution, which is instantaneous power storage and relief.
[snip]
superconductors don't like magnetic fields, and don't support high current densities.

And that's an even bigger problem if you're talking about renewable energy, which also occurs in transients. There you have both sides acting eratically and so an even small chance that the two will occur in unison.

Superconductors are already being used for energy storage but not in the way you mentioned. Rather, they're used for the bearings on ultra-high energy flywheels and gyroscopes. In space, where it's already quite cold, superconductor bearings are used on gyroscopes (Only a few inches big thanks to the speeds they can now rotate) to keep satellites pointing the right direction. A lighter, high speed mass compared to a heavy, low speed mass has a higher energy storage value. The size and weight advantages are, obviously, a big thing for space based equipment.

Since superconductors totally reject magnetic fields impinging on their surface, the bearing is pretty much 100% efficient. Although, a normal magnetic bearing can't be much less efficient, so they must be fighting for a few percent at most I would have thought. Especially since the superconducting bearing probably needs at least some degree of refridgeration should sunlight hit the satellite; micro-cryofridges are the happening thing it seems.

There are natural energy stores as well. Here in the UK, in Wales, there's a big lake high up. When the demand on the national grid falls, the surplus energy is used to pump water into the lake. As the demand rises, water runs back out through a hydroelectric power plant. Of coarse, it's not 100% efficient but it's better than nothing.